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#spider-man and batman: disordered minds

chriscdcase95 · 5 months

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Ya’ll MF’s, especially on Twitter: “Guys, if the Joker were in Marvel, Spider-Man wouldn’t take him seriously, and would just keep heckling him and getting under his skin if they fought-”

Anyways, here’s what happened when they actually fought.

#marvel dc crossover #these crossovers and encounters HAVE happened in official comics #just putting it out there #spider man #batman #peter parker #bruce wayne #the joker #jack napier #cletus kasady #carnage #spider-man and batman: disordered minds #chris rambles

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zedreh · 1 month

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Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds (1995)- The Joker and Carnage meet

In order to effectively cure their insanity, a bio-technic chip have been placed in Carnage and The Joker's brains. However, Cletus's symbiote renders it ineffective. Once Carnage escapes with The Joker and gets rid of the clown's chip, the two get to planning to team up... or... or at least I think their planning to team up. Their dialog kinda makes it sound like something else.

#comics #dc #dc comics #marvel #marvel comics #dc marvel crossover #the joker #joker #dc joker #cletus kasady #carnage #spider man #batman #they're not here but it's their villains #and yes i'm pretty sure their dialog isn't meant to be taken seriously #but come on

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emeraldoo · 5 months

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HEY! HEY!! LOOK AT ME!!

LE MEH!!!

hi, my name is bastion!! i have lots of other names im ok with tho, like bb, b, 8, shiver, weird, etc! im not ok with the nickname EM or EMERALD!

i am a zombie, jumping spider, maned wolf kin and fict kin Shiver from spl3 <3 i am also NOT a minor!!!!!! 18 yrs :•)) im also a rogue of mind!! (homestuck hoe.)

i am a trans male! i use he/xe/it prns! currently questioning my romantic attraction (pretty sure im bi-gay), but i am asexual!

i am the host in the zipties system, a did system!! some of the head mates have their own blogs, which ill tag :•)

i am audhd, gad, ocd, and a general cluster b pd haver!! i also have some delusions from ~an unkown disorder~ so! working thru some stuff still!

HERE IS MY COHOST!! please please PLEASE follow me on here bc it is my current fave social media :)))

MY INTERESTS!!!!!!!

SPLATOON AUGHHHHH most of my blog is splatoon....

i freaking LOVE nnsg :•3333 the anime of ALL TIME!!

SCIENCE!!!!!!! i plan on majoring in microbiology and synthetic biology but i luv ALL science!!

MUSIC/BAND!! i play euphonium and play in marching band and concert ensembles <3

i luvvv itsv and atsv and all of the spiderverse stuf!!!!!! my fave spider in spider man india btw.!

GUILD WARS 2 AIUGHHJJJHHH THE BEST EVER ACTUWLLY. PLAY IT PLAY IT RNNNN

ALTERS!!

not all of our alters choose to make profiles, and we arent going to force them to make them. if you need to know them, just send a DM or ask

* = written by alter

BASTION (☘️): DAS ME BITCH! im the host and core of the system >:•D i am the main guy in this blog soooo ya. (he/him, xe/xem, it/its)

EM/@riddlekid (🧪): the rat. horrible terrible (/hj... i guess..!) obsessed with horrible ppl sooo. erm yeah. he is also a prosecutor.!! also second most freq fronter :•P (it/its, he/him)

JON/@just-dr (🎃): jon!! he is a protector and a fictive of jonathan crane.. he is nice :•)) he doesnt associate much with his source tho so shrugsies (he/him, they/them)

MILES (👤): i actually dont know much abt them... they do their job rlly good tho! protector n stuff.. cool! (they/them)

CORNELIUS (🩸): um... so it just split and formed prtty recently (as of 12/8/23) and i also. don't know much abt it! other than it's a fictive of cornelius stirk from batman unburied.. and a prosecutor! (it/its)

SILAS (🦕): little!! he is just a kiddo and he hasnt really used anything other than picrew on my phone so. but he likes colors and animals!! (he/him)

JADE (🌐): cutey patootie wolf thing! fictive of jade from homestuck andddd yeah!! cool (she/they)

KARKAT/@karkat-cornbread (🔥): fictive of karkat homestuck guy. gets very angry very fast. idk role but yeah. the amgry one ig (he/they)

* DAVE/@karkat-cornbread (🕶️): yea. is this bitch predictable or what lmfao (he/any)

* HAL/9K/@timothy-timeaus (🛑): Beep boop. Coolest splinter of Dirk. I'm also cool with the name Odyssey or 9k. (They/Them)

* EQUIUS (🐎): Yes hello I am Equius I am more active on the cohost but might still use this platform.

* DIRK/TIM/@timothy-timeaus (🔗): I'm my own subsystem of splinters. I'm just a ye ol Dirk splinter.

MY TAGGING SYSTEM!!

DNI :•(

its not rlly. much? the only stuff i rlly care abt is jerks.. if ur a jerkkk (terf, racist, zionist, ableist, antikin, sysmed, transmed, antikink, whatever girl u git the gist....)

i don't have especially strong opinions on most discourse... slurcourse, syscourse, flagcourse, shipcourse... its kinda silly.! so um. whatever.

* (Hal writing.) Our take on pro/antiship is "It doesn't fucking matter". We aren't proship, we aren't antiship, we are just kind of shipping whatever the fuck we want. If you think it's problematic, we most likely won't care. Unless there's a genuine reason to be concerned, don't bother.

exclusionists!!!! i don't like you!!!!!!!!!!!! aphones, panphobes, biphobes, mspec gay/lesbian haters, antixenogender, anti neoprns, whatever! i do not like you at all >:•{

hp fans... you know why :•) please find a better media ..

nsft centric blogs... it's fine if you post nsft! but i am not comf with interacting kink/bdsm blogs :•P but i am PRO KINK AND BDSM! i love you kinksters <3 and this is ALL kinks!! no take backsies, this includes the 'gross' ones!!!!

BYE BYE!!

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distort-opia · 2 years

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i enjoyed the joker presents: a puzzlebox a little too much, and now i ask you for a similar recommendation. something fun, dare i say light, with a side quest feel to it, pretty please 👉👈

Glad you had fun with it! Hmm, Joker comics with a similar feel as Joker Presents: A Puzzlebox (2021)... The following also have a fun Joker, though the light-hearted aspect differs by degrees:

The Joker/Daffy Duck (2018)

Superman: Emperor Joker (2007)

Legends of the Dark Knight #162-163: Auteurism

Salvation Run (2007)

Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds (1995)

World's Finest (1990)

I’ll make the note that the last three don’t feature Joker as heavily. Salvation Run has a wide cast of characters, but Joker is still written in a very enjoyable way, with him definitely being one of the main players in the story. (Him vs. Lex Luthor is a lot of fun.) Same with World's Finest, which is basically Bruce and Clark against Joker and Lex, but again -- worth reading for the Joker shenanigans and some incredible outfits. And Spider-Man and Batman is another crossover with some unexpectedly delightful Joker and Carnage interactions.

And I don't know if you've delved into older comics, but these are some classic fun Joker stories from the Bronze Age:

The Joker's Five-Way Revenge in Batman (1940) #251

Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker in Batman (1940) #321

The Laughing Fish, in Detective Comics (1937) #471

Hope you enjoy!

#asks #batman #joker #joker comics #my comic recs

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jedivoodoochile · 1 year

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Spider-Man 🤝 Batman on Earth-7642 of the Multiverse. 🦇🕷

After J.M. DeMatteis’ 1995 DC and Marvel Comics inter-company crossover story “Spider-man and Batman: Disordered Minds”, The Batman and the Web Slinger become an alliance once again in DeMatteis’ 1997 graphic novel “Batman & Spider-Man: New Age Dawning”, illustrated by Graham Nolan, Karl Kesel, Gloria Vasquez, and John Costanza.

When eco terrorist Ra’s Al Ghul wants to wipe out the population by putting it all under water, he asks for Kingpin’s help in executing his diabolical plan. When Kingpin refuses, Ra’s does the unthinkable and gives Kingpin’s wife Vanessa an aggressive cancer that only Ra’s al Ghul an cure. In order to save his wife, Kingpin works with Ra’s. Once Spider-Man and the Caped Crusader join forces when they learn New York is the first major target to be destroyed, Kingpin asks for their help to not only stop Ra’s al Ghul but also to help his now dying wife. In the end, Ra’s Al Ghul is defeated and his daughter and Batman love interest Talia Al Ghul helps her beloved by getting the cure for Vanessa’s illness. The Dark Knight in the late 1990s and early 2000s would continue to reunite with some of the fictional universe’s greatest characters.✌🏽🖤🦇📚

#spider man #batman

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ao3feed-brucewayne · 1 year

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hiraeth

by endeavourhatepage

What happened?

Where am I?

So many questions went through her already racing mind. Shaken up by the events, there she sat, in the middle of a dark alleyway that alerted her Spider-Tingle. “What the fu-“

hiraeth (n): a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home that maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for lost places in your past

Words: 1363, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/M

Characters: Reader, Tony Stark, Damian Wayne, Titus | Damian Wayne's Dog, Bruce Wayne, Original Child(ren) of Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Alfred Pennyworth, Jim Gordon, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Stephen Strange, Bruce Banner

Relationships: Tony Stark & Reader, Bruce Wayne & Reader, Damian Wayne & Reader, Jason Todd/Reader, Batfamily Members & Reader, Alfred Pennyworth & Reader, Tony Stark & Daughter Reader

Additional Tags: Reader-Insert, Avenger Reader (Marvel), Reader is Spider-Man, Spider-Girl - Freeform, Batbrothers (DCU), Batfamily (DCU), marvel/dc crossover - Freeform, Angst, Comfort, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Tim Drake is Red Robin, Anxiety Disorder, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Damian Wayne and Reader Get Along, Reader is 19, Reader "dies" in Infinity War, fem! reader, Swearing, TikTok, Adopted by Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/43178214

#IFTTT #bruce wayne #batman #the dark knight #the cape crusader #gotham #dc universe #ao3 #ao3feed

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sonofjeddah · 1 year

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Superheroes of Arabia Podcast: J.M.DeMatteis Interview

youtube

I grew up reading his work in the 80s and 90s. He dared to take on obscure or B-list characters and made them an instant hit at DC Comics. He took A-list characters at both DC and Marvel Comics to new heights through his unique storytelling style. True story: He brought me and John Romita Sr. to tears with one of his stories

Now, he is the creator of The DeMultiverse consisting of 4 new comics co-created by artists Tom Mandrake, Shawn McManus, Matthew Dow Smith & David Baldeón. Superhero, fantasy, Western & more! Published by Spellbound Comics

The DeMultiverse Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spellboundcomics/surprise-four-secret-comics-by-jm-dematteis-demultiverse Spellbound Comics Website: https://spellboundcomics.com/the-demultiverse/

J. M. DeMatteis' works for DC and Marvel:

Justice League International Omnibus Vol. 1: https://amzn.to/3FO25dT

Justice League International Omnibus Vol. 2: https://amzn.to/3NDLBXD

Doctor Fate: https://amzn.to/3E4NXvs

Superman Speeding Bullets: https://amzn.to/3t0ptxl

Defenders Epic Collection: Ashes, Ashes...: https://amzn.to/3fxSm0R

Captain America Epic Collection: Monsters And Men: https://amzn.to/3DENsa8

Spider-Man - Kraven's Last Hunt: https://amzn.to/3DJiQUW

Spider-Man - Best of Enemies: https://amzn.to/3DDhtqN

Spider-Man and Batman - Disordered Minds: https://amzn.to/3fBnSLc

The Amazing Spider-Man no. 400 (Death of Aunt May): https://amzn.to/3E49RPy

#Superheroes of Arabia podcast #j. m. dematteis #DC Comics #Marvel Comics #Spellbound Comics #DeMultiverse

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dovegraye · 2 years

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about me / intro post:

call me dove or graye, my pronouns are they / he. i'm aroace and polyam. i'm physically and cognitively disabled as well as severely mentally ill and disordered, so updating regularly can be very hard. i ask that you be patient with me.

i'm plural, so those of you who need advice on d.i.d. headcanons and fics, i'm always glad to help! i'm also willing to beta, though not currently due to personal circumstances.

i write for percy jackson / heroes of olympus, criminal minds, spider-man, kingsmen, hannibal (tv), all for the game, batman, miraculous ladybug, and more!

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marvelman901 · 2 years

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Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds (1995) . Written by J M DeMatteis Penciled by Mark Bagley Inked by Mark Farmer and Scott Hanna Colors by Electric Crayon Lettered by Richard Starkings Edited by Eric Fein and Danny Fingeroth . Carnage and the Joker had allegedly been cured of their psychopathy, but Carnage had different ideas. Both Carnage and the Joker worked together, but Batman and Spider-Man were on the case... . #marvel #spiderman #dc #batman #dccomics #joker #justiceleague #avengers #jmdematteis #markbagley #carnage #90s (på/i Gotham City) https://www.instagram.com/p/CZeo9DeMvSK/?utm_medium=tumblr

#marvel #spiderman #dc #batman #dccomics #joker #justiceleague #avengers #jmdematteis #markbagley #carnage #90s

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carlocarrasco · 2 years

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A Look Back at Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds (1995)

Disclaimer: This is my original work with details sourced from reading the comic book and doing personal research. Anyone who wants to use this article, in part or in whole, needs to secure first my permission and agree to cite me as the source and author. Let it be known that any unauthorized use of this article will constrain the author to pursue the remedies under R.A. No. 8293, the Revised…

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harry-peter · 3 years

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Demonizing The Mentally Ill

So this silly little Spider-Man shipping blog has been going since 2012, and in all that time I’ve never really said much about myself. Until a week or so ago when that unpleasant, so far nonsensical twist involving Harry happened in the Spider-Man comics. Man, that opened the floodgates! There will apparently be a new comic out tomorrow which deals with the horrible situation and is written by the also horrible Nick Spencer. So... time to talk Harrys and Parksborns and why this blog exists in the first place, but more importantly time to talk the portrayal of mental illnesses in superhero comics.

Businessman #1: So you’re really going to do business with Osborn, Jay? Isn’t that a little risky?

Jay: Eh. I’ll just write a Goblin clause into the contract, or maybe I can get nut-job insurance - Then, it might even pay for him to turn into a blithering psychopath! [Laughter]

Peter: Hey, guys, take it easy. You’re at his party.

Jay: Sorry, sorry... [to the others] One of his college buddies. College most likely being code for “looney bin.”

Businessman #2: Like father, like son...

[Amazing Spider-Man Extra #1]

So the above is a moment of realism that popped up in an 2008 Spider-Man comic. (Don’t worry, Peter starts fighting those guys in the next panel.) I say realism because that is what a lot of people think about mental illness.

...and well, here we are jumping into the difficult thing already, there’s an extent to which superhero media also thinks that. You’ve probably heard it as the background noise to both older and newer Marvel and DC comics.

Comic books have long relied on mental disorders to drive their most memorable villains. Consider the Batman line, in which the Joker, Harley Quinn and other “criminally insane” rogues are residents of Gotham City’s forensic psychiatric hospital, Arkham Asylum. [New York Times]

It’s just sort of part of the mythology of superheroes at this point, you know? And I know strides have been taken to improve it in recent years which I’m very grateful about. But there is an extent to which when people say of superhero comics, “It’s just people in suits beating up the mentally ill,” you can sort of see where they’re coming from. One tiny moment in a superhero movie that’s always stuck out to me is in The Dark Knight, where this exchange takes place after Batman apprehends a criminal:

BATMAN: He's a paranoid schizophrenic, former patient at Arkham. The kind of mind the Joker attracts.

And I don’t mind The Dark Knight as a movie I guess, but considering what the Joker is (a mass murderer) lines like that strike me as so goddamn irresponsible.

(Speaking of Batman, here’s an interesting factoid: The Child Within, probably so far the most in-depth story about Harry’s mental illness and its hows and whys, started off as a Batman story. J.M DeMatteis talks about it in the 2004 book Comics Creators on Spider-Man. He ended up switching Batman and Two-Face for Peter and Harry and the results were, he says, “much more interesting.”)

Anyway, that brings us to another guy with schizophrenia...Harry.

Doctor: Perhaps if Harry hadn’t been so depressed when he took the drug, it wouldn’t have hit him so hard, but that can hardly matter now. You can see the result, total clinical pychosis. What a layman would call schizophrenia.

Peter: Terrific. While I’m off battling the Hulk in Montreal, my roommate drops acid and cracks up. No wonder Gwen wanted me home...

Even Peter here is not overly sympathetic about Harry’s drug use and diagnosis. Which I suppose just makes it hit home all the more about how extremely stigmatized those conditions are.

I guess this is where I come in. I was I guess about 18 when I read all this, generally clueless about most comic-book universes (the MCU didn’t even exist yet) and just about to be hit VERY hard by a mental illness I was aware of but didn’t know the name of or how godawful it was gonna get. This was OCD, as it turned out. It presented in some...interesting ways, and in the spirit of being open about mental health let’s take a look at them... In my mind, everything I did could potentially lead to the death of a loved one, no reason just feelings, so eventually I really did stop doing anything and sat on the bed all day. I pulled out my hair (this is a seperate thing that also has a name, trichotillomania) and then I just kept it in boxes and stuff because I was too afraid to throw it away. Actually I kept pretty much everything, I was afraid to get rid of it. At one point I actually did more or less stop eating, because the “voices”/intrusive thoughts in my head were telling me to. I thought there was a high chance some of the people around me were the devil or possessed by the devil, trying to get me to drop my rituals and kill my loved ones. God, there’s so many things, some of them I actually don’t even remember. I’m actually kinda surprised I didn’t get sectioned, in a way. Maybe it might even have worked out, I don’t know, I wonder about that sometimes.

I once spent a entire morning thinking my cat was a demon and not wanting to go near it, because it winked at me. (I used to use this story as an anecdote when meeting new people. It does not work.) The list goes on and on and on.

Well, you get the picture. There I was back in the late ‘00s with the sort of mind a supervillain attracts and -

- uh it worked? Just not in that way.

I probably said this in the other post I made about the current comics mess but man I was really, really lucky to encounter a character with a mental illness who wasn’t demonized just as I was going through it myself. That was the really staggering thing to me. Harry was clearly not well mentally, alienating and scaring people, he wasn’t a superhero, he wasn’t even physically attractive (ditto) and yet everyone liked him. Peter loved him, even. (There ya go, the secret origin of this blog.) Not only that, Peter made it clear on more than one occasion that Harry was ill, not evil. In between me being awestruck by all this I guess I thought, “This is a thing? People will still like you even if you’re mentally ill? They’ll fight for you?!” And that turned out to be correct.

So you can probably understand why I’m so repulsed by a comic book twist that literally demonizes Harry, i.e turns him into an evil demon. Because the Harry we know now, post-resurrection into the modern-day comic, is pretty much just a normal person in many regards. Yes his father is a supervillain and he still struggles sometimes but he’s just...a good dude. A good father, too, which is important in terms of showing the breaking of an abusive cycle. Right now we not only have Harry as a demon but also Norman as an apparently good person, which on a meta level just... feels really gross. That’s his abuser.

It’s not like this sort of thing hasn’t been done before, I suppose. There were plans to make Harry the villain behind the Clone Saga at one point, which is full-on baffling to me. It negates all the amazing work J. M. DeMatteis did with Harry, it negates his death scene, it negates everything. What the hell? And then there was The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which I hate about as much as you would reasonably expect a mentally ill person to hate an adaptation where a canonically mentally ill character murders someone without remorse.

(Another fun fact about me, as if you didn’t have enough of those already, is that - sigh - I actually do, like ASM’s NotHarry, stand a chance of inheriting an incredibly unpleasant disease. Only a slight chance, but godddd, Amazing Spider-Man 2 is just a trauma tour for me. I geniunely will never watch it again, I can’t.)

But generally Harry in his various forms has remained a good person who always chooses love over hate no matter what. And now, with the Kindred reveal and everything that’s come with it... I don’t know what to think. I certainly don’t trust or remotely like Nick Spencer, a man who apparently considers this reddit-y nonsense to be good writing. It feels very much within his wheelhouse to make a story where the abused, mentally ill man is ~the real~ abuser and his cruel, violent father is ~the real~ victim, and that’s what I fear the most about all this.

Is any of this stuff I’m talking about ableism? I don’t know. Other people are way more qualified to answer that question than me. I suppose if I was to turn my brain off (oh god please) I’d say it feels ableist? I remember coming out of ASM2 and I feel like the thought buried in the back of my brain was, who knows if it’s fair or sensible, “They’ll think we’re all like that.”

(We are not.)

Well, until tomorrow at least, that’s me about done. If you’re reading this and any of the mental health stuff sounds familiar, you’re absolutely free to message me for advice, I’ll do my best. I might not get to you for a few days because of the regular adult life stuff but I will eventually, I promise. (Gotta pay forward the “People will fight for you” thing.) I suppose I’ll probably always be in recovery from my own brain goblin but man, it gets so much easier when there are other people/characters, ya know? Oh and I can also guarantee, despite unpleasant twists of fiction such as this, that neither you nor my cat are actually a demon.

(Too long, didn’t read? “When I said Harry Osborn was a kindred spirit, that wasn’t what I fucking meant.”)

#harry osborn #spiderman #mental health #peter parker #representation talk

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facesofbatman · 3 years

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Click for full version: Cover to Spider-Man/Batman Disordered Minds by Mark Bagley

#batman #Mark Bagley #image

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majingojira · 4 years

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Spider-Man Real-Time Aging Timeline

I’ve been asked to get on my crazy again with this, this time for Spider-Man. Well, here goes and boy, this is about to get WEIRD! A lot of this IS based on Spider-Man: Life Story, so if you are wondering about something, refer to that.

Because there’s a LOT of Spider-Man events out there, I couldn’t include them all without going totally nuts. If you have a question about them, ask! Though beware, “The writers made that up” is a possible explanation. 1946 - Peter Parker, Mary Jane Watson, Jessica Drew, Luke Cage, “Flash” Thompson, and Gwen Stacy born. 1947 - Peter’s Parents die under somewhat mysterious circumstances. His Aunt May and Uncle Ben Parker take him in.

1950 - Julia Carpenter born. 1962 - Peter Parker, 16 years old, invents a quick-drying temporary adhesive with properties similar to spider silk as an entry in a science fair (with hopes of catching someone’s eye to sell the invention to in order to aid his aunt and uncle). Unfortunately, one of the other entries was a might volatile and explodes. Peter is caught in the blast radius and injured. Worse, while on the ground an escaped Tarantula bites his hand in its panic. Peter recovers, but the incident was quite traumatic, and he associated everything that followed with that spider.

When he recovers, he finds himself stronger, faster, and tougher than he was before, and more ‘aware’ of his surroundings. Worse, he was ‘seeing’ things before they happened. He doesn’t know what to do with these abilities at first but is inspired by seeing the masked wrestler El Santo perform on TV. He hits on the idea of fighting for money with a masked identity. It goes rather well, but we know how this song and dance goes by now.

After his, he invents gloves and boots to better help him climb across surfaces, as well as web-shooters for ranged entrapment. He soon figured out web-swinging from there. And thus, Spider-Man was born! But what did cause his powers to awaken? It goes back a few hundred years. One of the greatest swordsmen of all time was a man named Zatoichi. Upon learning of this man, one of the greatest criminal masterminds of all time (Fu Manchu) attempted to re-create this man’s skills. This eventually led to the creation of the Nanjin, a sect of Warrior Monks who ritually blinded themselves to “See With the Heart”. Over time, The Devil Doctor did his best to be eugenic about the subject, but random mutation is going to random. Peter Parker his the jackpot with his genes. Upon suffering a horrendous injury, an epigenetic response kicked in and he became as they were--more in fact with an enhanced musculature and reaction time on top of it. How strong is he? Well, starting out, he was a very athletic human, far more so for his size and weight. After fighting and working out for a few years, he could give some species of vampire a go without much problem. Especially with his “spider-sense”.

And yes, Daredevil is a trained Nanjin. Obviously.

Also, this year, Jessica Drew is the only survivor of a car crash into a chemical truck that kills her family. With no one to watch her, she is kidnapped and experimented on by HYDRA. 1962-1966 - Many of Spider-Man’s classic rogues appear in this timeframe. Notable oddities about them based on what people assume are as follows: Vulture’s ‘flight harness’ was based on the old Doc Savage designed Rocket Pack, most famously employed by the Rocketeer (Cliff Seacord) back in the Late 30s/Early 40s; Otto Octavius is a Cthulhu Cultist; The Sandman is a person who absorbed a juvenile Founder/Changeling and gained some semblance of their shapeshifting abilities; The Lizard is likely tied to the experiments which created the “Alligator Man” of Bayou Landing (The Alligator People); Electro is one of several known “Electrical Mutants” -- people who were born with an electro-kinetic ability.

1964 - Norman Osborn becomes the Green Goblin.

1965 - Peter Parker meets Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy.

1966 - Flash Thompson goes to Vietnam.

1969 - The death of George Stacy, Gwen Stacy’s Father.

1972 - Giant-Size Spider-Man #2 - Spider-Man and Shang-Chi team up against Shang’s Father, Fu Manchu.

Peter Parker marries Gwen Stacy. 1973 - Giant-Size Spide-Man #1 - Spider-Man tangles with (a) Dracula.

1974 - Giant-Size Spider-Man #3 - Spider-Man helps resolve a case started by Doc Savage in 1934.

Flash Thompson comes back from Vietnam with a wife, Sha-Shan Nguyen-Thompson, but without his legs.

Jessica Drew escapes Hydra’s indoctrination and tries to make headway as a hero on her own as “Spider-Woman”. It does not go well.

1975 - Marvel Team-Up #36-37 - Spider-Man meets Frankenstein’s Monster. Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man - Spider-Man is tricked into fighting the legendary Superman by the machinations of Otto Octavius and Lex Luthor. They eventually team up and stop the malcontents. 1976 - Jessica Drew decides to re-invent herself as the heroine “Jewel” since her powers really have very little to do with Spiders. 1977 - Professor Miles Warren’s plan of making Gwen Stacy his own via “cloning” is exposed by the ‘new’ Green Goblin, Harry Osborn. Unfortunately, tat technology is over a decade away, and his “Clone” is more “Human Meat Puppet” and rather horrifying. In the conflagration/confrontation, he and Gwen Stacy are killed. Harry Osborn disappears for a time... Mary Jane Watson-Osborn and Peter Parker comfort each other over their mutual losses.

Jessica Drew finds herself under the thrall of a mind-mage known as “The Purple Man.” The thrall is eventually broken, but though she manages to recover, it leaves scars.

1978 - Marvel Team-Up #79 - Thanks to a mystical malady, Spider-Man battles Kulan Gath, and things could have ended up badly for him, if not for the revelation that Mary-Jane Watson was a descendant of Red Sonja of Hyrkania. Touching an artifact allowed the She-Devil to manifest in the present and aid Spider-Man in taking down her ancient foe.

Spider-Man first encounters the blind seer Madame Web.

Birth of Samuel Thompson to Flash and Sha-Shan Thompson.

Jessica Drew takes up two new identities, Knightress (for about 5 minutes) and Jessica Jones to distance herself from what happened.

1980 - Marvel Treasury Edition #28 - Spider-Man manages to accidentally thwart the plans of Doctor Doom, to turn the monster known as Parasite into a massive energy storage device after it drained the life force from the Hulk, Superman, and Wonder Woman.

Secret War - Spider-Man is one of the many people invited to this decade’s Mortal Kombat tournament. Unfortunately for Shao Khan, so is Superman (Clark Kent), and he utterly wrecks the event, making the whole thing a wash, forcing Shao Khan to wait another decade to continue his win streak. The monstrous being known as “Venom” follows Spider-Man from Outworld. One of the people taken in by this is a survivor of “The Shop”, Julia Carpenter. Taking a cue from Spider-Man, she dubs herself Spider-Woman (II).

Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson marry.

Mattie Franklin born.

1981 - Marvel Team-Up #111-112 - Spider-Man has a time-traveling adventure featuring King Kull, battling against Valusian Serpent-Men. Marvel Team-Up Annual #5 - Spider-Man has more adventures with the Serpent-Men and their ancient enemies, Kull and Conan.

1982 - The monster “Venom” reveals himself. Its first host is Eddie Brock.

May “Mayday” Parker is born.

1983 - The Venom creature spawns, creating the horror known as Carnage. It goes on to spawn more Symbiotes. Jessica Jones has a child with Luke Cage (Daniel Cage) and later marries him. 1984 - Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds - Spider-Man and Batman (III) team-up.

Kraven’s Last Hunt occurs.

Cindy Moon, the grandaughter of Flash Thompson, born.

1985 - Batman/Spider-Man - Batman and Spider-Man team up once again.

1988 - Anya Corazon born.

1990 - Julia Carpenter retires as Spider-Woman, Madame Web begins recruiting her as a replacement for herself.

1991 - Richard Wentworth jr., the descendant of the pulp-era anti-hero known as The Spider takes to the streets, and takes umbrage with the ‘pretender’ that is Peter Parker. He and Peter clash several times over the next few years, and the comic industry uses the presence of a ‘second Spider” to inflate the “Clone Saga” to ridiculous levels.

Thanks to developments from InGen being stolen when the company was liquidated in 1990, Efforts to Clone Spider-Man go forward under multiple groups. The results are nicknamed “Kaine” but artificial again technology doesn’t exist, so it wouldn’t bear fruit for many years.

1993 - May Parker Sr. passes away.

1995 - Richard Wentworth jr. goes to more volatile places around the world to sate his bloodlust.

Miles Morales born.

1996 - Gwen Stacy (II), niece of Gwen Stacy (via Gabriel Stacy) is born.

Mattie Franklin, a half-demon with arachnid affinities decided to become “Spider-Woman”. Her desire to prove herself causes quite a few problems.

1998 - Mayday Parker has her first outing as Spider-Girl under her parent's noses. After a few of these outings, she catches Mattie Franklin’s attention, who challenges her to a “Title Fight.” Mattie loses and chooses to go by “The Scarlet Spider” for a time afterward.

Benjamin Parker is born to Peter and Mary Jane Parker.

Cindy Moon is identified by the Nanjin and is kidnapped for ‘training’ by them. She ends up with a similar condition to Peter Parker.

2000 - Peter Parker retires from being Spider-Man and working Biotech to become a teacher at his old High School. Mayday Parker takes over properly as Spider-Girl.

2003 - Anya Corazon is kidnapped by the tattered remains of the organization known as Shocker and partly transformed into a quasi-magical cyborg super-soldier by them. She is rescued before she could be brainwashed by Kamen Rider (Kamen Rider Spirits). She takes her new ‘gift’ and becomes known as “Arana”, though people often call her “The Other Spider-Girl” to both her and Mayday’s annoyance.

2004 - Mattie Franklin dies battling drug-runners.

2005 - Samuel Thompson becomes bonded to the “Venom” Symbiot (or a facsimile thereof) by the U.S. Government. Dubbed “Agent Venom” he works with them as he furthers his military career.

Julia Carpenter takes over formally as Madame Web on the original’s passing.

2009 - Miles Morales is bitten by a spider carrying an attempt to create a retroviral payload to make Nanjin Adepts. He nearly dies from the venom, but it works -- with an added perk or two.

2011 - Miles Morales becomes Spider-Man with Peter and May’s blessings.

Kaine Parker reveals his existence to Peter, but more out of obligation, as he’d rather be left alone. He is not, thanks to mystical shenanigans. Even moving to Huston doesn’t help in that regard. He dubs himself “The Scarlet Spider”.

2012 - Cindy Moon escapes the Nanjin order and goes to “Spider-Man” to help. Mayday Parker does her best to get her settled after over a decade in isolation.

2013 - The “Ghost Spider” appears, and is eventually revealed to be Gwen Stacy (II), niece and namesake of the Gwen Stacy Peter knew. She is ‘accepted’ by the family, but has been through quite a lot and is often chastised for making bad decisions.

2018 - Miles Morales has his mind swapped with that of the extremely aged Otto Octavius via a dark ritual.

2019 - Miles Morales is freed of Otto’s domination of his mind. However, the Grand-Nephew of Otto Octavius (name currently unknown) begins causing him problems, dubbing himself the “Superior Spider-Man.”

#Spider-Man #Chronology #Timeline #Peter Parker #Mary Jane Watson #Crossover #Crossover Timeline #Miles Morales #Anya Corazon #Cindy Moon #Kaine Parker #Jessica Drew #Jessica Jones #Gwen Stacy #Ghost Spider #Julia Carpenter

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 4 years

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‘The Absent Father and Spider-Man’s Unfulfilled Potential’: Rebuttal Part 1: Introduction

Master Post

Back in 2012 I read a very interesting book called ‘Webslinger: Unauthorized Essays on your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’.

As the title suggests it was an anthology book made up of several different essays about Spidey (and edited by Gerry Conway himself).

The essays are an interesting read, though there are questionable points made and some inaccuracies.

Today though I’d like to debunk some points made in the essay titled ‘The Absent Father and Spider-Man’s Unfulfilled Potential’.

The reason for my desire to debunk parts of this essay is partially due to my inherent instinct to debunk problematic or misinformed stuff surrounding Spider-Man generally. However it’s also partially due to the author, J.R. Fettinger.

Fettinger is the creator and author of the essays found on ‘Spideykicksbutt.com’ and a regular panellist on the Spider-Man Crawlspace podcast. I respect both and the content they provide though there have been times I’ve disagreed with both and other times where quite frankly I think they’ve put forward statements that are outright wrong.

Fettinger and his work was the inspiration to an extent for me even choosing to write so much about Spider-Man, helped bring me back into fandom and his work helped me reconcile some things that I had felt made me an uninformed minority within fandom.

However, there have been times, more and more as the years move forward, wherein my eyes have narrowed at Fettinger’s statements regarding Spider-Man.

He once said something to the effect of ‘alcoholics are just stupid people doing stupid things through no fault but their own’.

He has repeatedly attested that it is morally wrong for Spider-Man and Batman to not simply murder characters like Joker or Carnage.

He has said that Otto’s actions towards Peter in Superior Spider-Man render him the worst enemy Peter has. This is in spite of him being a huge Norman Osborn fan.

He has essentially stated criminal killers like Shriek or Vermin (who suffer from severe mental disorders) deserve no sympathy.

He has said Kraven’s Last Hunt was flawed (to put it more delicately than he did) because Peter ‘never settled his score’ with Kraven.

He has even said that whenever DeMatteis gets into the psychological aspects of the characters he ‘goes off the deep-end’.

These views are most especially chronicled in his on-going segment of the podcast ‘Spider-History’ wherein he takes a month’s worth of (usually 616 Peter Parker) Spider-Man comics from a bygone month decades ago, recaps them and analyses the stories.

However, what is so frustrating to me about these segments as time has gone by is that Fettinger is overly critical and incredibly cynical. He has put forward his opinions as fact with little analysis or consideration of an alternative point of view.

To be blunt with relatively few exceptions he surmises each month in this section as mediocre-bad unless it contained something by Marv Wolfman or Roger Stern, two of his personal favourite runs.

Even then he puts across reductive summaries of the events of the book, in particular phrasing things to make certain characters (like Spider-Man himself) come across as worse than they actually are in the stories in question.

This is particularly a problem in my view because Fettinger’s status as a long read, knowledgeable and analytical fan confers onto him a certain degree of authority in regards to his statements about Spider-Man.

And you know what? It should.

He really does know A LOT about Spider-Man and he has made some incredible assessments about stories and characters related to the wall-crawler.

I cannot recommend you check out his website Spideykicksbutt enough.

But here is the thing...I do not advocate blind trust in his word, or anyone’s for that matter. Not even my own. I know A LOT about Spider-Man but I’m far from infallible.

Think for yourselves, do your own research, present your own arguments and counterpoints.

It’s what I do and why Fettinger frustrates me. Because he’s so belligerent to changing his views, most of which are adamantly cynical and judgemental.

Some people I’ve spoken to about this attribute this to his age. Most of his writing and podcast work has been produced when he was in his 40s or 50s.

It is often said that everyone becomes more cynical, grumpier and more stuck in their ways as they age.

I disagree with that in so far as not everyone becomes like that. And 40-60 is not a point when you are ‘done’ becoming who you are going to be and beyond changing.

It is the prerogative of old men to speak their minds but the WISE men are not adverse to changing them.

This is the root of my problems with Fettinger and his cynicism. Not to mention, I find cynicism simply lazy and foolish under most circumstances. Much as I find Fettinger’s ‘kill all criminals’ mentality to crime to be lazy and foolish.

These thoughts struck me when I re-read his essay from Webslinger. I read the essay upon first discovering his work but I apparently have changed in 6 years as I find much of it ill-considered, cynical, judgemental and problem riddled.

Hence my desire now to debunk it.

The gist of the essay is Fettinger talking about how Spider-Man has lots of unfulfilled potential and attributing this to the loss of his father figure Uncle Ben. He goes on to list off different father figures Peter has had and what the end result of their roles in his life might have been. For context this was written around the time of Civil War 2006.

My first and probably biggest bone of contention lies in how Fettinger frames Peter’s ‘unfulfilled potential’.

It’s here where you start to see his overly cynical and judgemental side.

I will not quote him word for word here because it’d take too long. But early on he writes that Spider-Man’s powers come at the price of his happiness, peace of mind and the normalcy that we all take for granted.

This is partially true but still misinformed.

Peter’s mind is most definitely not peaceful most of the time and his life not normal. But there is that key phrase ‘most of the time’. Not all of the time.

Even during his career Peter has had several moments of grace. Most of the stories transpiring in the immediate aftermath of Mary Jane’s return to his life in ASM v2 #50 come to mind issue #51 even calls out that nothing bad has really happened to get in the way of Peter and MJ’s reconciliation.

This oversight is particularly egregious since that period had only been a few years before the writing of this essay.

But it’s not as egregious as the other thing Fettinger said. That being Spider-Man has cost Peter his happiness.

Er....no.

There have been many things that have made Peter unhappy in the course of his superhero career but as ASM #500 clearly confirmed for us Peter, in spite of all that, is ultimately happy. Which was a big deal as Peter had just relived all his old battles at once.

The omission of ASM #500’s ending is telling because Fettinger actively dislikes the story and the scene with Uncle Ben particularly. He’s labelled it as ‘banal’ and essentially said if he could talk with his own deceased father the conversation would’ve gone very differently. Problem is the the story was not about him and his family but about Spider-Man and HIS family!

Fettinger then asks if when Peter dies he’d be labelled as someone who fell short of his potential. He illustrates the point by comparing 15 year old Spider-Man to adult Spider-Man circa 2006.

He claims Peter made few adjustments to his fighting skills. Not true. The older Spider-Man beyond the Silver Age did in fact adjust some of his fighting skills, noticeably in regards to ramping up his speed during combat.

He also took martial arts lessons from Captain America in FNSM v1 #1, putting the techniques he learned from that into practice in the very same issue. That issue was published just a year before Fettinger’s essay by the way.

Granted these do not seem particularly significant.

But let’s flip the script a little bit. Let us presume Fettinger to be correct, Spider-Man between 1962-2006 had never evolved his fighting style significantly.

Is that really an example of Peter doing himself a disservice, of not fulfilling his full potential...or is it that the fighting style he had was not only adequate for the life he lived but in fact optimum?

Spider-Man after all has an incredibly effective and sophisticated fighting style. It is impossible to truly replicate by anyone exempting those of similar powersets to himself.

His immense strength allows him to plant himself on the ground and exchange simple punches, kicks, etc. with a lot of power behind them.

But with more room to manoeuvre his speed, wall crawling, web-slinging and agility allows him to augment that raw power to deliver a lot of hits in a short space of time from a near 360 degree axis. See his battle with Firelord above)for proof of this.

His webs can be used concussively, to distract, to incapacitate and can even act as a defensive shield.

(I know the Spider-Girl image isn’t 616 but it might as well be if you know the contex behind the story)

And then there is his ace in the hole, the Spider Sense. This ability is linked to his reflexes and intuitively enables him to know an attack is coming. It almost automatically makes him adjust his movements accordingly in conjunction with his immense reaction speed and agility.

This fighting style had been enabling him to defeat a wide variety of foes across what was then 44 years of published stories.

So was it really that Peter was slacking off in not evolving it? Or was it more that he early on developed something extremely effective that didn’t need any real reinvention?

Moreover isn’t it impressive (rather than a point of condemnation) that Spider-Man essentially figured out the best way to fight with zero instruction or training when he was just a teenager. That’s incredible so it’s far from something to chastise him for simply because he hadn’t radically altered it.

What’s worse is Fettinger claimed that Peter ‘continued’ to rely upon sheer strength, raw intelligence, dumb luck and the stupidity/lack of imagination of his foes to win the day.

Let’s put aside for the moment how Peter has whipped up gadgets or chemicals when needs be.

Let’s also ignore how his foes even upon trying new tricks have more often than not met with defeat anyway.

Let’s also entertain the idea that Peter truly does rely upon his foes stupidity and dumb luck in battle. Let’s do that even though he absolutely doesn’t, he’s very rarely just presumed he can win because a villain is dumb, but he has exploited that fact when presented with it; see 99% of Rhino fights. Hell let’s even ignore how Spider-Man uses his speed, and agility and webbing and spider sense in battle as much as his strength.

What exactly is Spider-Man supposed to rely on besides his sheer strength and raw intelligence?

Fettinger is calling Spidey out for relying upon his raw physical powers and his intelligence.

Like...what is an MMA or boxer supposed to rely on besides their muscle and their mind to strategize before and after a fight?

Fettinger continues to point out that exempting his Iron Spider outfit or his alien costume Peter has continued to rely on his ‘wash n’ wear red and blue pajamas’.

There are two waysto view this statement. Either Fettinger is being critical that Spider-Man has not opted to alter his costume aesthetically ever or else never opted to alter it in terms of being functional. That is to say it’s still just a piece of cheap cloth.

Both arguments are invalid criticisms.

Peter has changed his look more than once throughout the years, noticeably he wore a cloth version of his black suit, used two rubber insulated outfits to fight Electro, made an armoured costume in Web of Spider-Man #100 and used four different costumes when he adopted four new identities for himself, all of which were used for different functions.

The black costume however served no function beyond enhanced stealth and Peter retired it due to him and his wife not liking how it reminded them of Venom, a notorious publically known homicidal maniac.

The Armoured suit was only created with access to ESU’s scientific resources, was destroyed on its first mission and realistically was compromising to Spidey’s fighting skills (hence Slott’s version was redesigned). It was also impractical as it was composed of a new hardened version of Peter’s webbing meaning it was never going to last anyway.

His rubber suits were similarly impractical for continual use and severely damaged during battles with Electro. They could not be worn as casually as his standard suit, realistically would’ve impeded mobility to a certain extent and were designed for one specific foe anyway. In fact Spidey usually ran into Electro by chance or else with limited time to intervene in his crimes. Meaning he’d not have the time to locate the rubber suit anyway. Besides...he usually managed to beat Electro without it anyway. After all rubber gloves would be a fairly effective defence and his webbing was itself an insulator. That was his go to in Electro’s debut in ASM v1 #9 and brought up in New Avengers v1 #4.

True Spider-Man trashed his original rubber suit for seemingly no good reason, but since this so aggressively makes no sense I think it’d be safe to presume Peter’s rationale was that the suit itself was ineffective (it didn’t provide full insulation) and was literally held together by glue. The suit was likely unusable after the battle hence why Spidey trashed it.

The four new identities he created though are the hardest to defend. It really doesn’t make much sense for him to have retired those identities beyond the simple fact that, well...the book is called Spider-Man not Hornet/Ricochet/Dusk/Prodigy. I suppose you could go so far as to say pretending to be other people and not using his web-shooters compromised his fighting abilities as he had to consciously move and talk differently as well as use different weapons and tactics. Also maybe he heard about how well multiple alter egos went for Moon Knight. The costumes were to be fair stolen from him and used by other people meaning he’d have had to come up with entirely new identities for himself and ultimately Peter would prefer being Spider-Man having come to see it (for all it’s burdens) as part of who he is.

So contrary to Fettinger’s criticisms, Peter HAS changed his costume, but from a practical/functional point of view there really is little reason for him to permanently make any changes. Or else when he has done so extenuating factors have compromised his attempts.

Meaning all that’s left is Fettinger’s complaint that Spidey never changed the outward aesthetic. Which is not a legitimate complaint about his ‘unfulfilled’ potential. I’ve kept the same posters in my room for many, many years. It doesn’t mean I’ve failed in my potential. It just means I can’t be bothered to change them/I have grown attached to them.

Fettinger continues his train of thought by talking about how Spider-Man’s webbing and web-shooters have not significantly changed since his early days barring his adoption of organic webbing.

I will give Fettinger some leeway here. He never said the webbing/webshooters have remained totally unchanged, just that they’ve mostly remained unchanged. So stuff like Peter equipping a spider tracer trigger to his web-shooters, sedative stingers, impact webbing, an LED light to tell him when he’s low on ammo and adjusting the design and formula of the webbing over time I am lumping all under ‘mostly not changed’.

Even though objectively by 2006 the web-shooters had changed.

But again why does this demonstrate unfulfilled potential?

Spider-Man’s web-shooters are a brilliant feat of scientific engineering/chemistry and have served him well across the decades.

They didn’t need to be radically re-invented.

True, Ben Reilly found ways to improve upon them which Peter later incorporated. Does this not prove Peter was slacking off, of failing to live up to his potential?

Yes and no.

Yes because there WERE improvements he could have made.

But no because Ben had access to Seward Trainer’s scientific resources, less social responsibilities, a lot more time on his hands and was in many ways far less stressed out. As such he was better able to spend time dreaming up those improvements.

Said improvements by the way equated to wearing the web-shooters on the outside of the wrists, sedative stingers and impact webbing and he had FIVE years to dream all that up.

So you know...hardly him re-inventing the wheel.

The truth is if Peter had been in a similar position to Ben, he would’ve likely dreamed up the same improvements.

But he evidently didn’t need to since the web-shooters worked just fine. Ben himself didn’t spam the stingers or impact webbing during his career as Scarlet Spider or Spider-Man. Nor did Peter in the years after he integrated most of Ben’s adjustments into his own web-shooters.

And he did just fine most of the time.

Any further upgrading to his web-shooters, like the kind we saw in Parker Industries, would’ve required access to resources Peter simply didn’t have.

Fettinger continues that Peter’s relationship with the public he serves is tenuous at best.

Again, this is not an example of unfulfilled potential. This is the result of Spider-Man’s reputation being slandered by Jameson and the wider press getting in on the act. This was proven in ASM v2 #39 wherein Aunt May, decades after Spidey began his heroic career, attempted to find a newspaper that didn’t have a negative bias towards her nephew and struggled to do so.

In New Avengers v1 #15 the Avengers attempt to win Jameson over due to Spider-Man’s involvement with the team only for him to turn on the team collectively.

Combine that with:

a) The numerous times Spider-Man has been framed for crimes he was guiltless of

b) The instances where he was deliberately painted in a negative light, such as when he assaulted a seemingly innocent Norman Osborn in Spectacular Spider-Man #250

And it was summarily not Spider-Man’s fault that in his 15 year history his public relations had never been great. Nor was it a negative reflection upon him that he’d been unable to improve them in that time

The public have been fed a particularly strong and buzz worthy narrative for so long that it’d be difficult for him to ever rehabilitate his public reputation without working for the authorities legitimately, being pardoned for any real/perceived crimes he’s been accused of and unmasking publically. Even then it’d be no guarantee.

Not to mention (though Fettinger could be forgiven for not taking this into account from a 2006 perspective) in the world we live in today it’s sadly apparent that news stories about how bad things are simply sell much more than stories about something positive.

Fettinger continues to say that in spite of Spider-Man’s dalliances with team membership his stubborn independence and feelings of inadequacies ensure he remains a loner and at times a fugitive with many heroes regarding him as poorly as the villains he fights.

This for me was possibly the greatest ‘what the fuck’ moment in this essay.

Stubborn independence. Okay, maybe? Although the message of his role in the then current ‘Civil War’ storyline was that surrendering his independence was a bad thing! By unmasking, surrendering some of his independence to Iron Man and working for the government Peter found himself in an inevitable position. He was trapped from doing the most good by a corrupt system. A system that was actively demanding he help do bad things by rounding up fellow heroes and removing their civil liberties. And in the process he made his friends, family, colleagues, students and general acquaintances targets!

Fettinger didn’t know this at the time, but in truth when you follow the chain of events, joining the Avengers is what led to One More Day.

If Peter hadn’t joined the Avengers and let them know his identity, Charlie Wiederman wouldn’t have gotten approval for his experiments from Iron Man.

If he hadn’t performed his experiments he’d have never become a freak.

If he hadn’t become a freak he wouldn’t have eventually burned down the Parkers’ homes.

If they hadn’t been homeless Iron Man wouldn’t have offered them Avengers HQ to stay at.

If they hadn’t been living there Tony wouldn’t have taken Peter under his wing.

If Tony hadn’t done that, if the Parkers weren’t beholden to him for the roof over their heads and if Tony didn’t know who Peter was, there’d have never been an issue about Peter unmasking publicly in support of the Super Human Registration Act.

If Peter hadn’t unmasked publicly Kingpin wouldn’t have put a hit out on his family.

If Kingpin hadn’t put the hit out Aunt May would never have been critically injured.

If Aunt May hadn’t been critically injured there’d have been no need for a deal with Mephisto to save her life.

Joining a team led to one of Spider-Man’s darkest hours and ultimately his greatest defeat.

So you know…maybe there is something to be said for ‘stubborn independence’.

Moving on…feelings of inadequacy? That’s heavily debatable. Again, see ASM #500. Peter was an ultimately happy person. He had a firm sense of pride throughout his life as much as he’d beat himself up. His inadequacies always came in the form of ‘I could/should have done more to help’.

Typically inadequacies manifest as ‘I’m just not worth it’. Even if you disagree and argue they are more like ‘I’m not good enough’ the context is still different. Whenever someone laments ‘not being good enough’, it’s almost always coming from a selfish mindset. Peter in AF #15 was frustrated about his inadequacies before going off on a power trip. But the older Peter’s frustrations were about his inability to do more for others! Superficially they might be called the same thing, but the internal psychology behind them is very different. Fettinger is attributing the former mindset to the latter iteration of the character.

It didn’t even really apply in the early years of the character. After all his problem in ASM #1 when he tried joining the Fantastic Four was about being too cocky (understandable given his age and experience as a performer) than about feeling himself to be somehow ‘not good enough’ for the team.

But then you get to the part here Fettinger claims these inadequacies and independent streak ensure Peter will at times be viewed as a fugitive. And that’s the point where I began to question near damn everything Fettinger has ever said about the character.

That’s not about Peter.

That’s the result of Jameson and super villains. If he wasn’t so independent or felt so ‘inadequate’ then I fail to see how that’d change his situation beyond other heroes disbelieving the news and vouching for him. But his various friends in the superhero community for many years never fully believed such slander anyway, especially since some of them had been victims of similar stuff themselves.

For instance, circa 1996 (let alone 2006) I find it fundamentally unbelievable that Daredevil or the Human Torch of all people would ever honestly entertain the idea that Spider-Man simply assaulted an innocent man in Spec #250 or (beginning in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #88) that he actually murdered low rent thug Joey Z (a crime Osborn framed him for).

More mind boggling though is Fettinger’s assertion that Spider-Man was (and always had been) a loner precisely due to his independence and inadequacy. This is utterly inaccurate because by 2006 Spider-Man was (to much consternation within the fandom) a member of the Avengers!

He’d been one for 1-2 years at the time of this essay’s writing and it’d been a MASSIVE deal. With hindsight we know that to some extent Spider-Man more or less held some form of Avenger’s status up until 2019, around 15 years after he first joined.

The idea of Spidey always being a loner was also aggressively contradicted by Spectacular Spider-Man #75-100. In those issues Peter and his girlfriend the Black Cat formed a crime fighting partnership. Yes they were lovers but the point is Peter was more than capable of accepting an on-going team arrangement. True their team fell apart with the end of their romance, but that had little to do with his independence or his feelings of inadequacy. Peter broke up with Felicia because she’d lied to him and didn’t value him beyond his Spider-Man identity.

That doesn’t touch on his independence at all and more importantly is an example of Peter doing something because he had too much self-respect to continue to be with someone who didn’t value him properly. Which is the opposite of things failing because he had issues of inadequacy.

Heck Spidey at one point tried to form his own superhero team, the Outlaws.

What’s worse is that Fettinger himself wrote a detailed essay about Spidey’s history as a team player.

I’ll leave it there for now. We’ll continue covering the introduction next time.

Master Post

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ao3feed-brucewayne · 1 year

Text

hiraeth

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/iNC3M51

by endeavourhatepage

What happened?

Where am I?

So many questions went through her already racing mind. Shaken up by the events, there she sat, in the middle of a dark alleyway that alerted her Spider-Tingle. “What the fu-“

hiraeth (n): a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home that maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for lost places in your past

Words: 1363, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/M

Relationships: Tony Stark & Reader, Bruce Wayne & Reader, Damian Wayne & Reader, Jason Todd/Reader, Batfamily Members & Reader, Alfred Pennyworth & Reader, Tony Stark & Daughter Reader

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/iNC3M51

#IFTTT #bruce wayne #batman #the dark knight #the cape crusader #gotham #dc universe #ao3 #ao3feed

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